“However deeply and quickly internal management evolves, there will always be a demand for strong value-adding external management as well, even for reasons of diversity alone. So we will continue to do what we do.”

In an indication of the growing push to bring certain asset classes in-house, AustralianSuper recently announced it would add up to 20 new staff to run a slice of its core Australian equities holdings.

“With so much change currently occurring in the industry, we will only know what the effect of this is when we look back in several years’ time,” he says.